Month: August 2009

The College Board released today the 2009 SAT Scores by State. They strongly encourage people to look at the data stand alone yet it seems everyone wants to see the SAT Rankings by State. We picked them up from a variety of news sources and present them to you with caution. Some states have low participation rates and arguably can tilt the field. We will follow up with some analysis in a future post. Also see our post Does Increased Spending on Higher Education lead to Better State University Rankings?Top SAT State Scores include Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri. These States primarily have their students take the ACT test so their numbers may not be representative of the entire state.

The Worst States for SAT Scores include Maine, Hawaii, South Carolina, Georgia and New York. DC is also very low.
Here is the ranking of SAT Scores by State List:

2009 State Sat Scores

Rate

Reading

Math

Writing

Total

1

Iowa

3%

610

615

588

1813

2

Wisconsin

5%

594

608

582

1784

3

Minnesota

7%

595

609

578

1782

4

Missouri

5%

595

600

584

1779

5

Illinois

6%

588

604

583

1775

6

Michigan

5%

584

603

575

1762

7

South Dakota

3%

589

600

569

1758

8

Nebraska

4%

587

594

572

1753

9

North Dakota

3%

590

593

566

1749

10

Kansas

7%

581

589

564

1734

11

Kentucky

7%

573

573

561

1707

12

Oklahoma

5%

575

571

557

1703

13

Tennessee

10%

571

565

565

1701

14

Arkansas

5%

572

572

556

1700

15

Colorado

20%

568

575

555

1698

16

Wyoming

5%

567

568

550

1685

17

Mississippi

4%

567

554

559

1680

18

Louisiana

7%

563

558

555

1676

19

Alabama

7%

557

552

549

1658

20

Utah

6%

559

558

540

1657

21

New Mexico

11%

553

546

534

1633

22

Ohio

22%

537

546

523

1606

23

Montana

22%

541

542

519

1602

24

Idaho

18%

541

540

520

1601

25

Washington

53%

524

531

507

1563

26

New Hampshire

75%

523

523

510

1557

27

Massachusetts

84%

514

526

510

1551

28

Oregon

52%

523

525

499

1548

29

Vermont

64%

518

518

506

1543

30

Connecticut

83%

509

513

512

1535

31

Arizona

26%

516

521

497

1534

32

Alaska

46%

520

516

492

1528

33

Virginia

68%

511

512

498

1522

34

California

49%

500

513

498

1511

35

West Virginia

18%

511

501

499

1511

36

New Jersey

76%

496

513

496

1506

37

Maryland

69%

500

502

495

1498

38

Rhode Island

66%

498

496

494

1489

39

North Carolina

63%

495

511

480

1487

40

Nevada

42%

501

505

479

1485

41

Indiana

63%

496

507

480

1484

42

Delaware

71%

495

498

484

1478

43

Pennsylvania

71%

493

501

483

1478

44

Florida

59%

497

498

480

1476

45

Texas

51%

486

506

475

1468

46

New York

85%

485

502

478

1466

47

Georgia

71%

490

491

479

1461

48

South Carolina

67%

486

496

470

1453

49

Hawaii

58%

479

502

469

1451

50

Maine

90%

468

467

455

1391

51

DC

79%

466

451

461

1379

All Students

46%

501

515

493

1509

Source: College Board and various news services Rate: Student Population Rate as reported by www.collegeboard.com

The Best States for Jobs are primarily heartland states. The Best State for Jobs is North Dakota with an unemployment rate of only 4.2%. Nebraska and South Dakota at 4.9% are the only other states under 5%. Utah is our fourth Best State for Jobs at 6%. You will have a decent chance to find a job in Iowa, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Montana.

If you are looking for a job in a state with very high unemployment, you might want to consider a state where the opportunities are broader and fewer people looking. In other words, consider changing your state. Michigan at 15.2% is the Worst State for Jobs. Approximately 1 in every 6 people are unemployed. Rhode Island, Nevada, Oregon and California are some of the Worst States for Jobs with rates all close to 12%.

High unemployment also creates a reinforcing negative cycle. Unemployment creates downward pressure on real estate, commerce and social institutions. It does not turn around quickly. While unemployment is one very important metric in your search for employment, job openings i.e. who is hiring now? should also be considered. For recent info on job openings by state see Best States for Job Openings

We had reported in January that increasingly people were no longer choosing Florida as the Best State to Retire. The Internal Revenue Service reported that more than 50,000 fewer tax returns were filed in Florida since 2005. See Florida Losing Population for more on the IRS filings and January report.

The director of the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research Stan Smith said the population dropped by 58,000 people between 2008 and 2009. This is the first decline since large numbers ofmilitary personnel left the state in 1946 after World War II.

Florida has become less attractive to many people on fixed incomes due to its expensive cost of housing particularly in South Florida and high real estate taxes and property insurance.

Tennessee, Georgia, North and South Carolina have become attractive choices as Best States to Retire. Florida will not turn around quickly as many people on fixed incomes are still looking elsewhere. Tennessee has the lowest cost of living in the nation. See List of Cost of Living by State

If you are looking for a Best Place to Live or Retire, Florida has lost some mojo.

After dropping like a rock during the first few months of the year and staying there through May, job openings have increased 8.59% nationwide since May 31, according to analysis released by BestandWorstStates.com. This is encouraging news and reinforces the view that employment dynamics are improving from their lows. While a significant rebound, it should be viewed with caution as job openings are still 1.57% below late January levels, just prior to the stimulus package being passed. Total job openings are not high enough to make a significant improvement to the jobless rate which was released this week to be a slightly improved 9.4%. For a complete list of state job opening activity see previous post List of Job Openings by State

Job openings increased nationwide 8.59% from May 31, 2009 from 210,048 to 231,370 on July 31, 2009. This increase is quite significant with 44 states showing increases during the past two months. The Top States for Jobs were mostly small states. Indiana was a notable large state on the Best State for Jobs list with a 18.14% increase in job openings during the last 60 days. Most of the Best States for Jobs have below average unemployment rates. The number of job openings in many of these states are quite small. Many of these small states would be Best States for Jobs if you are looking for employment however. For the complete Best States for Jobs List see

Job openings have decreased 1.57% since the end of January nationwide even though 30 states have more job openings than in January. The Top Ten US States according to population have shown a 4.1% decrease in job openings. California, the US largest state, has 9.3% lower jobs available than in January. With a 11.6% jobless rate, California appears to be a poor state for job seekers. Illinois is also a Worst State for Jobs with a 14.2% drop in openings along with a 10.5% unemployment rate. The US unemployment rate will not improve significantly without the Top Ten States also improving as these states have about 50% of the US population.

The US States continued to see rising unemployment in June. 16 States, if you count DC, now have unemployment rates greater than 10.0%. 38 states and DC saw increases from May. All 50 states and DC have higher unemployment than a year ago. Our national unemployment rate was 9.5% in June. The July national jobless numbers will be released on August 7.

Michigan continues to be the Worst State for Jobs with a 15.2% jobless rate. North Dakota is the Best State for Jobs with only a 4.2% unemployment rate.

3 of the 5 largest states by population have rates greater than 10.% They are California, Florida and Illinois. California has more than twice as many jobless as any other state with 2.146 million jobless in June. California hasthemost unemployed people in the nation. The next largest amount of unemployed are in Florida with 970,000 jobless in June according to BLS statistics.

We will be releasing shortly our updated analysis of job openings. Unemployment will continue to rise until more job openings start to appear. List of Best and Worst States for Jobs is below.